Snapshots in support

This petition handover group photo in Canberra shows a wide range of interest in a Climate Emergency Declaration and Mobilisation. The Climate Emergency Declaration petition was delivered to Parliament on 27 February 2017, and the occasion brought together not just many sides of politics but also involved collabortion between the worlds of engineering and climate emergency declaration campaiging.

The hand-over marked the end of a two month journey for Steve Posselt from Ballina to Canberra in his kayak down the coast of New South Wales to gather support for the call for an emergency declaration. At the end of the trip the petition had gathered 18,101 signatures – with the petition still open for signing. » Read more

Statements in support

“We are out of time for gradualist policy. We need courage rather than procrastination from our aspiring leaders. Emergency action is a call increasingly being taken up by leading scientists and responsible leaders around the world as extreme events escalate.”

Ian Dunlop, former Chair of the Australian Coal Association and former CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors

“Our children top the list of those most likely to suffer from climate change. Their future, their health must be our number one priority. We are doing too little, too late. As a society we need to step up.”

Fiona Stanley, Epidemiologist Professor

“Climate policy is not providing a secure future for Australians. The implications of rising sea levels and drowning and failed states are underestimated. Just as we have faced fire, flood, drought and military threat in the past we now need to throw everything we can at the climate crisis. We must make action on global warming the nation’s highest-level priority.”

Paul Barratt, former Secretary of the Departments of Defence and Primary Industries & Energy, and a former CEO of the Business Council of Australia

“The unprecedented rate of global warming is melting the polar ice caps, raising sea levels and undermining food and water security for many of the world’s peoples. Action has been too slow, because economics has trumped physics. Now emergency action is the only rational response.”

David Spratt, Author

“We have waited too long to act and ecosystems all over the planet are suffering. There have been 226 mass animal deaths just so far this year. Ecosystems are collapsing, coral is bleaching and dying, storms, cyclones, floods, heatwaves and extremes of cold and winds are all getting worse as CO2 levels rise. Time has come to act! Politicians must take note. We will not stand by and watch them ignore the most important issue in the history of human existence. Change is inevitable. This election is the new beginning.”

“We are running out of time to save our Great Barrier Reef, protect our rural communities, safeguard our way of life and avert a global warming catastrophe. Dangerous global warming is not just an environmental issue. It threatens our children’s future and it’s unfolding before our eyes. The Paris climate agreement is a historic first step, but without a rapid transition to clean energy, we risk serious ever more serious fire, drought, extreme weather, conflict and global instability.”

Larissa Waters, Senator, Australian Greens Deputy Leader

“It’s all about risk. Would you cross a bridge if the design engineer told you that you only had a 66% chance of getting to the other side? Would you board an aircraft if the aeronautical engineer said that ‘I only design aircraft with a 66% chance of them arriving at their destination’? No? Neither would I. We engineers design and build to ensure as near as humanly possible that there will be no catastrophe. Why then are politicians and business leaders accepting a 66% chance the the worlds climate will be survivable by mid century? We must declare a climate emergency now, and act as if we are at war. We owe it to our grandchildren.”

Business endorsements

Organisations’ endorsements

Three Darebin councillors and two candidates in the next council election – Bo Li, Angela Villeila and Trent McCarthy – signed the Climate Emergency Declaration Petition, together with 160 Darebin citizens, asking federal parliament to declare a climate emergency and restore a safe climate.

Support for petition campaigner Steve Posselt

Support for the climate emergency expression

In a comment on a Facebook-book thread, Miriam Robinson said she is no longer using the terms climate change, global warming, or similar. She is now making a point of always saying ‘climate emergency’. Others are following her lead on that: